Shepherding Your Kids' Dreams

I appreciated Mitch Albom’s words a great deal when he criticized the parents of 16-year-old, Abby Sunderland, who is attempting to become the youngest person to sail around the world. Sunderland was recently rescued in the Indian Ocean after her boat sustained damage in stormy seas, leading to three reactions: (1) Thank God she’s okay, (2) Why in the world is she doing this? (3) Why in the world are her parents supporting her in this endeavor?


Albom correctly point out that the parents’ claims that “We don’t push (Abby to try to break dangerous world records)” doesn't gives them the moral high ground and absolves them from any negative outcome. The parents are still enablers, both financially and emotionally, and thus have a responsibility not to simply encourage blindly, but to discern when it’s actually appropriate to discourage a given endeavor at a given time. Looking at the evidence, it’s hard not to believe that the Sunderland parents have been simply bystanders in the midst of Abby’s quest for glory. In my mind, they’re probably only a step better than “balloon-boy” fraudster Richard Heene. Heene used his kids as a means to achieve glory – the Sunderlands are irresponsibly doing whatever they can to help their daughter achieve her own dreams of glory.


That criticism aside, I can appreciate the conundrum in this parental responsibility. I had written in a previous post that as a youngster, I had a desire to work in sports management, which was squashed by my well-intentioned dad. Was my dad right? Under what circumstances and at what age can a parent lovingly but firmly tell a child, “No, this isn’t the right thing to do; this isn’t the right dream to pursue”? Sure, there’s some discretion here, but I like to think that parents have at least some concept of honorable and meaningful pursuits. Then again, in this day of reality television where people will do anything for their 15 minutes of fame, I’m probably hoping for too much.


The Sunderland parents might argue that their support of their child is no different than parents who support their kids’ starry-eyed ambitions into acting, music or sports. Sure, except the (1) the boy who messes up his audition for “American Idol” doesn’t need to be bailed out by a government or taxpayer funded rescue diverting resources away from non-Guiness record-seeking emergencies (2) the girl who doesn’t pass her Juilliard pre-college audition doesn’t drown with her body forever lost at sea.